A Few Good Yarns

“Because 2008 was a political year, we wanted to do something that had a political feel to it, but where everyone could come to the table. And that’s hard to do,” says Chris Loffelmacher, head of adult cultural programming with the Denver Public Library’s Fresh City Life. “We decided to do a service-oriented program for service people, a simple hat pattern based on military-regulation helmet liners.”

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More About

• Chris Loffelmacher
• Denver Public Library
• Washington State University
• Knitting
• Arts and Crafts

So Fresh City Life organized a knitting class with the helmet liner as the project; at the end of the class, the students donated the hats for use by U.S. soldiers. And that was when things started getting a little out of hand: The interest in knitting hats for soldiers was so high that Loffelmacher turned his seed of an idea into an ongoing project.

“We’ve received hats from California, from Mississippi; I’ve gotten calls from people in Washington State and Washington, D.C.,” Loffelmacher says. It’s all led to a 26.5-hour knitting marathon, officially titled K.4.O.T. (Knit for Our Troops), which starts today at 3:30 p.m. and continues through 6 p.m. tomorrow at dozens of locations around the metro area.

Visit the K.4.O.T. website, www.denverlibrary.org/capsproject, to learn more — including knitting locations and stores where you can purchase K.4.O.T. yarn at a discount. At least one of the many locations will be open throughout the 26.5-hour period, so it’s possible to knit through the entire marathon — although you’re welcome to contribute as much or as little as your schedule allows, and the library will accept caps through the end of January and beyond. Call Loffelmacher at 720-865-1206 for details. Ready…set…knit!
Jan. 23-24, 2009